A management shakeup at Apple sparked by the poorly executed launch of MobileMe has landed the internet service in the trusted hands of vice president Eddy Cue -- a man with a work ethic as grueling and demanding as Steve Jobs, says one insider.

When tossing around the names of Apple's top brass, Cue's name rarely pops up, but it should, argues Apple veteran Chuq von Rospach, because he's "as important to Apple's success as [industrial design chief] Jonathan Ive." His forte: mapping out the back-end infrastructures that make the company's "online universe tick."

Those who are familiar with Cue know him for managing the iTunes Store to resounding global success, but he was also a force behind .Mac and the ever popular Apple Online Store. "It's the not-sexy part of the company, but it's the guts that make all of the sexy front ends actually work," says von Rospach, who crossed paths with Cue during his years of managing Apple's email lists.

Cue's teams have long been self-contained, von Rospach adds, spending most of their time in "uncharted territory," implementing technology that never existed before on large scales "under really scary conditions." Over the years, he's earned the respect of Steve Jobs by delivering projects on time, to specification, all while keeping "the darn thing(s) a secret" in the process.

Cue is one of few who've proven up to the task of meeting the stringent demands of Jobs, which isn't easy, von Rospach explains. That's landed him the opportunity to work under the command of one of the most methodical minds in the industry while testing his hand at some "really great stuff," which can quickly become "addictive."

His secret is to surround himself with equals who are "just as maniacal" about their work, and who accept the absence of middle ground and the constant aura of "burnout."

"Eddy's no easier to work with than Steve is, for obvious reasons," says von Rospach. "I invariably warned people not to hire into his groups unless they wanted to donate their life to the cause."

Cue's latest challenge, as revealed in an email from Jobs to Apple employees earlier this week, is to rescue MobileMe from the mistakes that plagued its launch, repair its tarnished reputation, and steer it down a path that the company can be "proud of by the end of this year."

Like Jobs, von Rospach expresses confidence in the Cue's ability to succeed. He argues that, contrary to popular opinion, it's not that Apple lacks the expertise to run an internet service on the scale of MobileMe -- it already runs the largest global single-instance SAP environment for iTunes -- it's more about "the MobileMe people blowing it."

Of course, some of the responsibility for MobileMe's failure also lies with Jobs, who has the final say on which products his company launches and which it does not.

"He's never been afraid to say 'this ain't ready' and pull something from release," von Rospach notes. "His rehearsals for MacWorld Keynotes are legendary (and sometimes brutal), and stuff literally has disappeared in the last 24 hours, if he wasn't satisfied with it."

There is one caveat, however: Jobs was trusting and depending on someone to offer up the truth about MobileMe, and whether it was truly ready for prime time. And the person who told him it was ready to roll was obviously dead wrong, which caused considerable embarrassment for both Jobs and the company as a whole.

"Steve and Apple aren't terribly tolerant of that kind of major screwup," says von Rospach. "Just imagine Steve Jobs wandering the hall with a flame thrower in hand, asking random people 'do you work on MobileMe?'"

"The thing wasn't ready and the release got botched," he says. "And now Eddy has been brought in to fix it, which means it's going to get fixed."

Cue's latest challenge, as revealed in an email from Jobs to Apple employees earlier this week, is to rescue MobileMe from the mistakes that plagued its launch, repair its tarnished reputation, and steer it down a path that the company can be "proud of by the end of this year."

I hope that means they are not going to not only fix the current hiccups as quickly as they can, but that they are going add features including online alarms in the calendar app, a "new" separate tab for bookmarks and other new surprise tabs too. I'm not looking forward to anything, cause where Jobs is concerned I never hold my breath.

Excellent Report! loved reading every line! and I cannot wait to see what Cue does

All it was is sound bites from the blog post with some filler added.
There was nothing added to the original post.

Mobile Me has a lot of potential and is a definite improvement from .Mac
Apple has always been behind the curve when it comes to the web.
Their strength has always been the desktop.
Safari and their close ties with Google have changed this to some degree.
Since they are now in the web browser "game" they are spending more time looking down the road.
They are investing in technologies like SquirrelFish and seeing the long term ramifications.
This has led to their interest in SproutCore, which if played correctly could be a real game changer.

Sounds like they out to pull it off the shelf.- fix it - then re-release it. And let people without iPhones have the option to keep .Mac as is. At least you don't have to have Vista - you can still get XP- right?

Even if it was working correctly it'd be missing some pretty obvious features like lack of cloud bookmarks (which .Mac had) and complete lack of Mobile me alarms.

I don't think Apple is planning to bring bookmarks or iCards back, but even if they are what I'm expecting Eddy to do is to focus on the connectivity and usability of what is currently offered first. Starting with email.

I understand that most browsers will be able to view MM's complex AJAX well enough but they really should have a simple version for older sites and a way to view bookmarks again. The iCards I don't care about because I've never used but from the replies on these forums they are very popular with some.

After all that is said and done I'd like to see iWork web apps and perhaps even an iTunes portal for streaming music from my home PC/Mac to my work machine using the MM iTunes controller.

PS: If you really want to get Bookmarks that you can get remotely it's not too hard to export them to an HTML file and then put them in and email to you MM account. You can set this up in an an AppleScript to update in set intervals.

"Additional information: The connection to the server “mail.mac.com” on port 993 timed out."...

Good Job Eddy!

I think it's a bit much to expect fixes to happen immediately if the problem is infrastructure. It's a service that might have a couple million subscribers, it's not just a matter of getting a mail server reconfigured.

Quote:

Originally Posted by solipsism

I don't think Apple is planning to bring bookmarks or iCards back, but even if they are what I'm expecting Eddy to do is to focus on the connectivity and usability of what is currently offered first. Starting with email.

Yes, I too would suggest fixing basic "meat and potatos" parts of the service before addressing the niceties.

FTA: "Those who are familiar with Cue know him for managing the iTunes Store to resounding global success, but he was also a force behind .Mac and the ever popular Apple Online Store." Has he been the "force" behind .mac or not? I'll take AI's word for it. .mac couldn't do what several free services could do. It drove people crazy, a total failure, no where near the standards Apple showed elsewhere, but I guess Jobs was hypnotized by Cue's wizardry.

Exceptional report, a first hand account, and no wish list, speculation, guessing, etc.

Let's hope that we will read Apple veteran Chuq von Rospach more often on AppleInsider.

My only disagreement is with Chuq von Rospach's choice for the next Apple CEO as I favour Tim Cook, the current Apple COO.

Unlike Chuq von Rospach, I didn't work for Eddie Cue, so that I have no reason to favour him over anyone else. But von Rospach's description of Eddie Cue leads me to believe that he is too much like Steve Jobs in a negative way. What Apple needs is not another obsessive, whimsical and secretive CEO, but a CEO with the academic background, experience and vision to take Apple to the next level and allow it to reach a 30% market share on the desktop.

Do you advise to buy it now or wait?
I mean why pay for something that's not working right. It's like paying for cable TV without all the channels your supposed to get and paid for- right?

Works fine for me. Not sure what issues the other person is having. Other than "Back to my Mac" in which the issues largely pertain to incompatible routers - it's not compatible with my router apparently, but honestly, I don't have a real need for it anyway.

Other than that, Sync/Push works fine. Can log into the web site and use the applications.

Disclaimer: The things I say are merely my own personal opinion and may or may not be based on facts. At certain points in any discussion, sarcasm may ensue.

Good, because the gallery is still as slow as molasses on a January day, my domain name doesn't link properly due to a fault at Apple rather than at the domain registry, and they still haven't added my extra 30 days to my account.

I don't like the use of AJAX in MobileMe to make the web apps the same quality as desktop apps.

I am not against quality, but the purpose of web apps is to be as compatible as possible, so you can read your email when you're in an Internet cafe is Istanbul (or something). But their use of AJAX has made it incompatible.

I don't like the use of AJAX in MobileMe to make the web apps the same quality as desktop apps.

I am not against quality, but the purpose of web apps is to be as compatible as possible, so you can read your email when you're in an Internet cafe is Istanbul (or something). But their use of AJAX has made it incompatible.

? Its compatible with every major web browser. What are you using? Netscape? Lynx?

I said it here on day one, someone was going to be fired. I wonder who was replaced?

Exactly.

Quote:

Originally Posted by DimMok

As opposed to sexy back ends....he he he

Nice. I'm into the top front ends as well...

Quote:

Originally Posted by artse

If Eddy Cue is responsible for "back-end infrastructures", why the h*** wasn't he responsible for MobleMe from the start? That's totally on Steve...

That's my question. It's nice to know who the new guy is but who was the one that had a new a&&hole ripped by Steve the man himself? Where is he going next? Oracle? AT&T?

Quote:

Originally Posted by mr O

one day in the life of mr O:
1. internet : Facebook = addressbook which is being updated by your friends, mail with friends, sharing & tagging pictures and creating events
2. internet : Gmail = work mail, Facebook notifications and newsletters.
3. desktop : Apple mail = reading and replying to messages fom my various Gmail accounts.
4. internet: Youtube = sharing videos with your friends which can be linked to the various social networking sites.
5. internet: MobileMe = obsolete. Sorry.

Mr O, MobileMe isn't for everyone. But for those that do not like FaceBook, get bored of the rubbish and poor quality videos on YouTube, etc... and when push email works properly... MobileMe still has potential. Also Vimeo vs YouTube.

Maybe I am old skool (well old new skool not old old skool) but I just see FaceBook as 90% of the time, a waste of my time. Not that I am a hermit or anything... If I had that time available to "socialise" on FaceBook I would rather spend that time having tea/lunch or talking with people I like in person.

So, would it be safe to say, folks want their iPhone, to work like a phone first, then give them the option for "Bells and Whistles" later.

Bring back the parts and pieces, one at a time, as they get them working perfectly
Add new features, only after they fix the IMPORTANT ones, and only add new features after they have been check and found to work
Don't do anything new at all (laptops, Mac Mini, AppleTV, iPods, Desktop units, or Monitors, UNTIL all of this mess is fixed or - Do they come out with some cool sheit to take everyone's mind off of this issue?

Folks, I've said before, and I'll say it again, we want the latest and greatest, (NOW) and when it doesn't work, we get angry. Let's wait until it is ready, and until it's ready, play with (and learn) what we have for now.

YES, they screwed up with this one and now they have to redeem themselves, but how do they do that, and make EVERYONE happy can't happen. So some of you out there get ready to be disappointed and down right pissed.

Maybe I am old skool (well old new skool not old old skool) but I just see FaceBook as 90% of the time, a waste of my time. Not that I am a hermit or anything... If I had that time available to "socialise" on FaceBook I would rather spend that time having tea/lunch or talking with people I like in person.

well, talking about you having tea with your friends. With Facebook you can skip the polite chitchatting of "what have you been up to" and get straight to a good old friends conversation.

I agree there's alotof crap on youtube, but it is the best gateway to people's lives - ahum profiles.

So, if you ever feel the need of spreading your love! Make a quality vid with iMovie and post it to Youtube and maybe it will find its way to my Facebook wall of posted items